Athletic Recruiting Services: The Winners Guide

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Almost all young athletes dream of playing college sports. It is the next step, the next level, the capstone on a lifetime of hard work. And for many, athletic scholarships may be one of the only ways for them to even be able to attend college.

However, the competition is fierce.

They are going up against every other athlete of their age, trying to stand out sometimes on a national level. At times, getting noticed isn’t even about their athletic achievements, or the quality of their play. It simply comes down to exposure.

You can play the best game of your life, but if there are no college coaches in attendance, then all they have is word of mouth and possibly some film (one of thousands of reels they get each recruiting season).

That’s where recruiting services come in.

Athletic Recruiting Services help parents and their student-athletes build solid networks and connections through exposure. The best services leverage existing relationships to ensure your child is showcased to the appropriate levels for their athletic standing.

But the list doesn’t stop here and truth be told not all of them are good.

This guide will walk you through what to look for in a good service, how to help your athletes apply and maximize their use of the service, and finally we’ll give you some recommendations of tried and true athletic recruiting organizations who you can trust.

What Recruiting Services Can Do?

You may be thinking to yourself, why would we need a recruiting service?

The college recruiting process can be complicated. For many families this may be their first time ever navigating these channels.

There are over 2,000 colleges in the United States with varsity sports teams. This sounds like a lot, until you consider that nearly 8 million athletes currently participate in high school sports, most of whom dream of playing at the next level.

Only around 495,000 do, around 6%. So every advantage counts.

And that is the primary benefit of using an athletic recruiting service, they can give your athlete’s a slight edge in a crowded landscape.

These services specialize in the recruitment process. They don’t do it once or twice like most families, or a couple dozen times like most coaches.

Some of these services have gone through the recruiting process thousands of times, and this gives them a unique understanding.

They may have also built up some solid networks and connections in this time as well, although you should be wary if the networks they boast sound too good to be true (more on that coming ahead).

Athletic Recruiting Services: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The most important thing you can do for any athlete and their family thinking about using an athletic recruiting service is to help them find one which will actually help.

Truth is, there are a lot of athletic recruiting services out there and not all of them are good.

Athlete’s dreams, and at times an entire family’s hopes, can be riding on their young athlete going to college on an athletic scholarship. There is a lot of emotion, a lot of hope. And wherever there is hope, there are opportunists.

Services will use this emotion to their advantage, but as a coach you are a less partial third party.

By removing yourself emotionally and looking at facts, you can help your athletes to partner with good services which will help them find the right athletic scholarship for them.

The Good

Good athletic recruiting services are upfront with what they are able to provide, and transparent with how they will provide it.

Your average athletic recruiting service will have access to several schools, and good connections at three or four.

These connections take time. Recruitment and partnerships rely on trust, which takes time to build. A good service will be upfront about what schools they can help find a scholarship for, and realistic about ones they can’t.

Beyond that, they will offer more of an advisory role. They’ll offer a variety of options depending on what the athlete and family want to do, won’t overpromise, and won’t distribute your information to affiliated companies.

Look for companies with proven track records, and read the entire spectrum of reviews. All recruiting companies will get glowing praise from athletes whom they have helped land a scholarship, and scathing criticism from those who weren’t so lucky.

But look for patterns. If most of the negativity comes down to not getting a scholarship at their dream school, that probably isn’t completely on the service. But if you find a pattern of neglect or overpromising and under delivering, you may have found our next category…

The Bad (And The Ugly)

As mentioned before, finding a bad recruiting service comes down to one word: overpromising.

Be wary of any service boasting fantastic connections or the ability to land your athlete’s dream school, especially if it’s at the Division One level.

Let’s be frank: D1 schools already know how to find the talent they need.

If your athlete was impressive enough to be identified by a quality D1 school, they probably would have been. And there’s nothing a recruiting service can do that a well-intentioned coach can’t.

Because the truth is, most coaches prefer to deal directly with athletes.

So be wary of any recruiting service making big claims. If something sounds too good to be true…it most likely is.

Another red flag is any kind of hard sell.

The recruiting process can be pretty overwhelming, and bad services take advantage of this. They’ll overstate the complexity of the process, while making big promises of what they can provide.

Some may even claim that without their help college won’t be possible. This is untrue and an immediate red flag, so hang up the phone as soon as they start playing “hardball”.

Finally, any service that claims to guarantee a scholarship should be out of the running immediately. This is a complicated process, and there simply are no guarantees.

Questions to Ask Recruiting Services

There are some things you can ask to find out who you’re dealing with, so run these by any service you talk with:

What exactly does your service offer?
How much does your service cost?
How involved will my athlete be in the process? (the answer should be very)
How will you evaluate my athlete’s abilities?
How will you identify which colleges to target?
Will you contact colleges on our behalf, and if so how many?
Will you distribute our information to any other companies?

All of these are legitimate questions and fair to ask. If you can’t get a straight answer, then move on to the next service and try again.

How to Sign Up For an Athletic Recruiting Service

Once you’ve identified a quality service, you’ll need to know the next steps in order to maximize what your athlete can get out of the service.

Partnering with a service doesn’t in and of itself guarantee success. Like anything in life, you get out of it what you put in. If you don’t have an athlete’s film or accolades ready to send to schools, all the connections in the world won’t get them a scholarship.

While finding the right recruiting service can be tricky, signing up with an athletic recruiting service is a relatively straightforward process.

They will meet with the athlete and their family, and typically collect as much information as they deem will be helpful in the recruiting process. Again, be sure that this information will not be shared with third parties.

Information they will ask for includes:

Basic personal information
Sport and position
Season by season statistics (where available)
Any film or athletic accolades
Grades

Some of the better services may also host or recommend a miniature “combine” in order to evaluate the athlete’s performance for themselves.

They will also most likely start with a personal interview. They’ll use this as a chance to understand and, if they are a quality service, temper the athlete’s expectations.

Helping Your Athlete Get Recruited

As their coach, the best thing you can do for any of your athletes is to document everything.

There are always people willing to be team managers or statisticians. Whether its an involved parent or some young kid looking to be the next Peter Brand, someone will be up for the job.

Have this statistician document their stats, and highlight their strengths. Remember, coaches want to see growth so be sure to find areas in which your athlete has improved season to season.

Also be sure all games are filmed, which will allow you to piece together great performances for a highlight reel.

Unless college coaches come to attend your practices or games, typically a level of exposure reserved for only the most prestigious programs, then film may be the only chance for coaches to actually watch your athlete perform.

There is a big difference between seeing numbers on a sheet of paper and actually watching an athlete play, thousands of little intangibles that are impossible to capture on the stat line. Film allows coaches to actually see your athlete play, which may be the difference between getting a scholarship or not.

Best Athletic Recruiting Services

Finding the right athletic recruiting service can be a pain. Luckily, we’re here to help!

We’ve sifted through the thousands of athletic recruiting services out there, and identified the best of the bunch. Services with good reputations, proven track records, and who won’t break the bank.

Use this list as a starting point, but remember to be diligent in your own research and follow up on what you read here with your own questions before partnering with any service.

The services are listed below in no particular order of preference…

BeRecruited

With over two decades in the industry, BeRecruited is a staple in the athletic recruiting business, and for good reason.

BeRecruited offers recruiting services to the full spectrum of sports, even including e-sports! That’s right, your kids’ Fortnight addiction might actually help pay for college.

BeRecruited also has portals for athletes, parents, and coaches, which helps everyone to have some level of involvement in the recruitment process.

We think this is one thing that sets them apart. One good rule of thumb is, the more involvement parents and coaches have, the better. Two, or even three, heads are better than one. A good service will actively involve family and coaches because, at the end of the day, its better for the athlete.

Like most services, BeRecruited has a resume builder that brings out a crisp, clean looking resume that will be easy for college coaches or recruiters to read.

These guys get thousands of resumes each season, and they really aren’t looking for too much flair, BeRecruited’s classic format is tried and tested.

One great aspect of BeRecruited is that athletes can compare themselves against other athletes in the database. This is huge in terms of finding strengths and weaknesses.

Take basketball, for example. An athlete may find that she is in the top 20% for points, but only in the 50th percentile for rebounds and defensive efficiency.

She can then maintain her offense, while focusing her efforts on the defensive end and increase her chances of being scouted.

The website also has a feature on its profile to show how many coaches have viewed the athlete’s profile, how many times they have appeared in searches, and how many coaches follow them.

This allows athletes to directly see if their efforts are translating over into increased visibility and exposure.

BeRecruited is free to sign up, and has a Deluxe Package that comes out to around $20 per month, which offers personalized consultation.

There is also a $299 lifetime Deluxe All Star membership which offers game film evaluation, a personalized scouting report, consultations with a personal recruitment coach, and a customized school list.

PrepHero

PrepHero is one of the better services because, in their own words, they focus more on player development and cultural fit than simply statistical analysis.

This is actually really important.

Finding the right college to play at isn’t just about finding a spot on any team willing to pick your athlete up. Cultural fit, actually making sure the athlete is happy at the college they play for is essential.

PrepHero aims to do this with a couple of different features.

The first is their College Match Survey, designed to match students with colleges that fit what they’re looking for. As indicated earlier, this survey is designed to match based on much more than just athletic compatibility.

They will ask questions about personal interests, extracurricular activities, majors the athlete is considering, and even take into consideration proximity from family in order to make sure parents can watch the student play, if that’s a priority.

Next, they will evaluate what the athlete is looking for in a college experience. They have over 20 metrics, with everything from academic performance to cafeteira food and social life.

Another feature of PrepHero is their Recruiting Sessions. These sessions will go through various schools one by one, presenting information about each.

If an athlete likes a school, they can send a custom personalized email expressing interest, which automatically includes the athlete’s profile.

For most athletes, they won’t be competing at a professional level. Therefore, it is essential to find a college that will enrich their lives with more than sports. PrepHero specializes in doing just that.

In terms of price, PrepHero is free to join but for full profile management access it comes out to around $10 per month for full access, which is relatively cheap compared to some other options.

Next College Student Athlete (NCSA)

NCSA is one of the largest recruiting services out there, having helped over 200,000 student athletes achieve their dream of playing in college.

As with most other services, NCSA offers an intuitive and well laid out resume building service. However, they also offer a dynamic resume option, allowing for more customization for athletes who would like to add a bit of style or flair to their resume.

It can be a gamble, but there is a chance that a bolder resume could help an athlete stand out to the right coach.

NCSA also has a comprehensive college matching system, which really works in its favor.

The very first step is to set family-wide college goals. They recognize that this may be the first time the entire family has sat down and actually set goals for their athlete’s college experience, so this is the very first thing they do to establish a starting point going forward.

Next, they will create a plan for academic eligibility. This is absolutely essential as, without academic eligibility, there is virtually no chance of playing in college.

They’ll run you through the NCAA requirements, then discuss your athlete’s transcripts, test scores, and evaluate their SAT and ACT scores to make an optimized academic eligibility plan.

Finally, its on to building a profile and matching with colleges.

They have a profile which will highlight key areas of athletic and academic performance, have a video uploading platform which makes uploading film a breeze, and have their own proprietary college matching technology.

For the upgraded packages, they also offer individual coaching and reporting, as well as communications coaching on how to reach out and communicate with college coaches.

On that note, NCSA has a wide range of pricing with more features becoming available at each tier.

While their website is vague when it comes to actual pricing, reviews show that their paid services range from $500 to $2,000 putting them on the more expensive side of the spectrum.

This level of service could easily pay itself back with a college scholarship, but be aware that nothing is guaranteed, so it is a gamble paying this much for a service.

CaptainU

Founded in 2008, CaptainU is another service that has been around for quite some time, and has partnered with over 3 million student athletes in their 13 years.

CaptainU’s founding philosophy is that coaches want to hear directly from athletes, which is absolutely true.

In that sense, their services are geared towards helping the athletes build up their own profiles, and reach out to coaches or colleges that they match up with well, and have a high chance of building a strong relationship with.

Their profile building service includes athletic and academic achievements, position, and ratings. However, it also has an option for peer review, which helps to ensure that each athlete’s profile is doing what it intends to do, and strengthens their ability to construct a valuable profile.

CaptainU also has email templates, which many athletes may find extremely valuable.

The school system doesn’t really teach students how to communicate professionally via email, and for many of these athletes, this will be their first time doing so. However, coaches do want to hear directly from the students, as opposed to having the recruiting service reach out to them instead.

Suffice to say, this can be the first major roadblock.

These email templates are guided, and help athletes to write a professional and effective introductory email. Sometimes getting a foot in the door is all it takes.

From there, it comes down to the personal connection between the coach and athlete. If the connection is right, then it will be a good fit. If the connection doesn’t develop, it probably wouldn’t be a good fit for the athlete anyways.

One drawback of CaptainU is that many of its features are plainly hidden behind a paywall. Their free features are quite limited, and as a result you will probably have to end up paying to make full use of their services.

Their monthly rates range from $5 to $125 depending on the package you choose, though reviews indicate that if you want a lot of value, you’ll probably have to pay for it.

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Final Thoughts: Athletic Recruiting Services: The Winners Guide

This guide highlights some of the more prestigious and established recruiting services, but it is always worth doing your own research.

At the end of the day, any recruiting service will simply help in bringing the best out of your athletes. You can aid this by having video and stats ready, as well as making sure your athletes are in good academic standing.

If you do your homework, supply your athletes with everything they need, and pick the right service, then there is a good chance that your athlete can end up playing for an NCAA or NAIA school. It may not always be their dream school, but that’s just one of life’s realities.

Work with your athletes and their families, and be there as a third party to make sure they partner with a service that is truly invested in helping the athlete and the family.

If you do that, then you’ve truly done your job as their coach!

Daniel